Beds and other news.

So the builders have finished and I'm getting in the first of the raised beds.  I'm putting in four of the main beds, so I'll be growing potatoes, carrots, leeks, onions, garlic, neeps and cabbages.  No photos until it's done because right now it all looks fuck-ugly.

This is being hampered somewhat by the fact that I bashed myself in the hand with a sledgehammer yesterday.  The right hand.  The hand that was holding the sledgehammer.  I'm actually impressed.  It's swollen, turning purple, two fingers are lacerated, but no bones are broken.

Having bugger all else to do this weekend, I'm thinking I'll jump the train down to Egham for a night at the opera, the new one about the Ap-ocalypse.

Until next time.

Edit: apparently my hand's a mess. The joints function but I've got periosteal cracks, weakened tendons, an injured pollical system, the ulnar nerve got banged up pretty good. 4 weeks light duties: no heavy lifting, no heat, no xbox; lest I give myself a crippled hand.

How far do ethics go?

It's an interesting question.  Normally in Science we think of ethics in terms of the direct effects of an experiment on subjects participants.  True up to a point.

Let us consider the Bell Curve, a psychological treatise that didn't directly involve much in the way of live experimentation, but which was used as a scientific justification for widespread racism.  Schools in black areas are underfunded compared with schools in white areas, and this underfunding leads to underperformance.  The Bell Curve allowed politicians and racist pundits to argue that "these kids aren't underperforming because the school is underfunded, they're underperforming because black people are not as intelligent as white people".  On that basis, correcting the underfunding was never a priority.  Thousands and thousands of young people received a sub-standard education because of the abundance of melanin in their neighbourhood, and this was allowed to continue because some bloke they'd neither met nor heard of had gotten it into his head that they were just naturally stupid.

I would beg to differ as - indirectly - this man has saved my life on more than one occasion.  At any rate, the racial aspects of the Bell Curve were later proven to be dodgy as fuck, and using that to form policy is seen as scientifically unethical.  If doing your thang as a researcher causes others to be harmed - even if they aren't involved - and you could have foreseen or avoided such then you are unethical.  Simple enough.

People say that politics should not interfere in Science.  True up to a point.  Misusing Science (or Psychology) to round up political undesirables is reprehensible behaviour on the part of all involved.  With that said, unfettered Science has given the world its fair share of horrors.  Freedom without some degree of regulation is like a loaded gun in the hands of a toddler.  There must be, not control as such, but limits.  There must be checks in place to ensure that innocents have nothing to fear from Science.  There must be acts that are deemed to be beyond the pale.

Ethics, in my view, begins with the germ of a thought in the researcher's mind before the study has even been fully conceived and ends only when those ripples upon the surface of history which were caused by the study have ceased.  Typically this point will be reached long after a prominent researcher has died.  Indeed, his great-grandkids might have great-grandkids by the time we can say that his work is no longer skewing the world.  If you loose a thing upon the world - be it a theory or an ideology - then you are responsible for what it does.

In my view of ethics, J. Robert Oppenheimer killed a quarter of a million civilians, because he built his doomsday device knowing full well that it was a tool for levelling and irradiating cities.  If we divide the casualties (c.250,000) by the number of weapons needed to cause that many casualties (2), then at a ratio of 125,000:1 we can say that the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the single most efficient slaughter of civilians in human history.  He's a hero to some, sadly, because the bomb is said to have ended WWII and saved the lives of thousands of soldiers who would've been flung back into combat had the war continued.  Standing between the war and the civilians is what soldiers are meant to be for.  A few thousand troops saved at the cost of a quarter of a million civilians is not an ethical trade.  Of course to some people it makes a difference that the unelected emperor of those civilians was in bed with the Nazis.  To others, it makes a difference that those civilians weren't white.

So then I encountered this article via a link on Facebook.  The university in question is undermining Palestinian homes in occupied territory at the risk of causing a collapse.  They say that groups calling for a boycott are attempting to bring politics into the business of what should and shouldn't be researched.  I disagree.  Ethical oversight prohibits abuse primarily because it is abuse.  Our notions of what constitutes abuse evolve with the political understanding of the times, but if we today perceive it as abuse then it is abuse, plain and simple.  Endangering the lives of families is not made acceptable just because they're Palestinians living somewhere Israel wants.  If anything, by forcing this upon those under occupation it is the university itself which has brought politics into research, as there's no way in hell they'd be allowed to do that kind of maverick shit in Tel Aviv!

It then falls to ethics bodies to intervene and halt the study.

If however the ethics body cannot or will not apply its own rules; be it because the abuser is untouchable (as in this case, Israel has Uncle Sam behind it to grant impunity), or because the ethics body has been bought, then we reach an unfortunate circumstance wherein the nearest semblance of ethical enforcement is obstruction by the protest of citizens.  A boycott or blockade has no weight on paper, it is unaccountable; but on the other hand I struggle to think of a more democratic way for a society and its citizens to articulate the point at which they draw the line between acceptable conduct and unacceptable conduct.

Now for the ethical distinction between winging a stone at the guy who took the decision to dig under homes in the first place and winging a stone at some poor bastard who is just doing his job...

'Tis the Season...

"Once they figure a way to work a dead horse, we'll be next. Likely I'll be the first too. 'Edd,' they'll say, 'dying's no excuse for laying down no more, so get on up and take this spear, you've got first watch tonight.' Well, I shouldn't be so gloomy. Might be I'll die before they work it out." 

– Eddison 'Dolorous Edd' Tollett

  Well, my part in the Christmas Clean is drawing fast to a close, Gods be praised.  My black dog, Shuck, tends to make an appearance around this time.  Two generations of Atheists (though half of us were still part-raised as Taigs) and still we gotta get festive.  My cynical nature reckons that the season isn't in full swing until I've called the tree a c**t to its face.  I hate Christmas, so the little acts of cynical pseudo-rebellion (like insisting that being Christmas no.1 makes Killing In The Name a Christmas song) keep the black dog from swallowing me whole.  I never take it too far though, on account of the fact that the rest of my family seem to like this ever-repurposed holiday, and that it is bizarrely easy to spoil it.

  Gardening then.  I've had to change my plans for the beds.  It turns out that a person can't work a bed of 5'x5' without stepping into it, which defeats the object.  Better than having six of those is having ten beds of 3'x5'.  Either way it covers the same amount of ground, but this way I get to grow more solanaceae and alliums, fewer beans and apiaceae, plus I can include things that weren't in the six bed rotation such as peas, wheat and gourds.  Here's the new plan; it's to be read clockwise in terms of a given bed, which actually means that the whole thing'll rotate anti-clockwise.

More tatties overall, but in a rotation that sees each bed growing legumes once every five years rather than once every six.  The beds won't reach all the way to the Eastern fence.  Instead, there'll be a strip of land a foot wide, from which I'll grow fruiting bushes and vines up trellis against the fence.  This is also where I'll grow borage, as any area of soil that has fruit growing in it has a heavy drain on potassium.  

  Other than that, the garden's ticking over.  Got some manure coming soon.  Got the baseplate to the composter coming soon.  Once Commercemas is over I can start building for the coming year.  I'll get a tool cabinet and a couple of bat boxes built.  The beds will be built in January.  I'm thinking railway sleepers for the beds, but you've got to be careful in buying them.  For beds, the law says I need timber not treated with creosote.  The shed likely January or February.  Once the shed is in situ I can work on trellis plus further bird houses, bat boxes and other things.  BirdCam will follow the shed.  The greenhouse tent will go up in March and the first seedlings will go into the garden shortly afterward.  With luck I'll be getting in the first of the early Harvest in June.  

  Lastly then, the post Why Biology?  has attracted enough interest (second most viewed post on the blog) that I reckon it's appropriate to go further back.  Science for me started when I was a tiny kid.  I had a microscope before I could write, but I'd document my methods and findings pictorially.  At 4 I used to sit and watch that cartoon variously known as Once Upon A Time... Life, and How My Body Works.  Mam got me a chemistry set when I was about 5 and I grew crystals of copper (II) sulphate.  The big thing though was Lego.  I had Lego throughout my childhood, starting from the day I was able to play with things without trying to eat them or fit them into the orifices of the head.  Physics, mechanics, timing, all can be explored with enough Lego.

  I don't think I was raised toward Science though, I think it's better to say that I wasn't raised away from it.  I had the tools because I asked for them and showed genuine interest.  The kids who grow up to consider Science are not those who were told to be curious, but those who weren't told not to be curious.  If that makes sense?  I dunno.  ROLL VT!

V. faba, A. italicum and endless R. fruticosus

  Since last night I've had Zombie by The Cranberries stuck in my head.  I like the song but it makes a brutal earworm.  Been listening to a lot of Lyndsey Stirling of late as I do so love string music.

Today I brushed back the leaves off the beds and lo!  My Vicia faba are coming in.  They're titchy, bud-headed shoots just now but they'll grow.  I've included a tuppence for scale:

Seven more or less parallel rows, though some shoots are isolated within the row whilst others are quite clustered.  

The random Arum italicum from the beds I've dug out and potted with a little 4:2:6.  Ultimately it's going to the windowsill of the Biology lab at my old college.  They're lovely plants but I can't ask a vegetable bed to bear the cost in nitrogen and potassium of an ornamental species whilst still giving me a decent yield.  The exception of course is for useful species such as marigolds and borage, which I don't eat, but which make themselves useful.  Marigolds discourage pests whilst borage frees up potassium and calcium in the soil.

Here the A. italicum is keeping Pinky and Perky company while I watch it for any signs of transplant shock.

Those alpines have grown like stink since I got them, and their leaves look far less symptomatic than they did.  Symptomatic isn't really the right word, but there isn't really an equivalent word that has to do with signs.  They'll want to go outside soon, I reckon.  I'll need to get some more straw first so that they can be properly mulched.  

Lastly then, I've given up pruning my brambles (Rubus fruticosus).  If I cut them back they only grow into the same space again and faster than before.  Instead I've taken to tying them onto the buddleia.  The ladder is about 4'6" to the shelf.  

Give it a few years and those brambles will be twenty feet high, the way they've grown.  I pity the poor sod who parks their car under it when the upper reaches are bearing fruit, as it's already a bird magnet.  Bee magnet too, which when you consider that something like a third of edible crop species are bee pollinated, a bee magnet is a nice thing to have around.  Bees freak me out, but their biological utility is undeniable.  

I have a show to light now so I'd best get off the comp.  Until next time xx

They're good for your heart...

Today begins the process of conditioning the soil on the East half ready for a six bed rotation.  I've dug seven neat rows, each two inches deep, and planted field beans.

At the time of planting they were scarcely distinguishable from pebbles, which was a mite disconcerting.  £3 of beans has covered the entire arable patch.  I don't know how edible field beans are as they are primarily sold as a green manure for Winter, like grazing rye.  But like all beans, field beans are legumes, which means they fix nitrogen, and we like nitrogen!  They'll grow over Winter and I'll dig them in in the Spring, thus making way for whatever veggies I end up planting.  

I'll rotate by family, so solanaceae, legumes, alliums, brassicae, apiaceae, and the 6th bed will be fallowed with either wheat or a couple of chickens.  I'm still arguing for the chickens but it'll probably end up being wheat.  

While I was at the garden centre I spotted these two alpine strawberry plants.  They were in a bit of a sorry way, with their lower leaves deprived of sunlight, the upper leaves waterburned, the roots too dense for the pot, and obvious deficiencies in nitrogen and potassium.  My heart went out to them, so I bought them at a discount.  They've been repotted in larger pots, given some 4:2:6, and they're now keeping Mike company on the landing windowsill.  

The one in the red pot is Pinky, the one in the purple pot is Perky.  

Lastly, my jasmine is growing well, although it's slowing down for the Winter.  I anticipate a growth spurt in the Spring, and I've noticed there was nothing about the arbour which would serve to encourage vines to grow across the front at the top; they'd just grow straight upwards.  I've put in a beam to correct this.  It's a kludge, but give it a couple of years and it'll be greened over anyways,  

That'll be lovely when it's all grown over.  I'll take some cuttings in the Spring and sow them in my propagator.  With any luck I'll end up with a pair of small jasmines I can plant out in April 2014.  

Until next time :)

Objectives and Objections

The house assigned me the task - a year ago - of de-jungling the garden and turning the larger West half into a lawn and recreational area, the slightly smaller East half into an arable patch for growing root veg and some fruit.  This is the garden, not counting the patio, as it stands right now:

Yes, I'm in that interesting age cohort (I started school in 1989) where my mind thinks in millimetres while my hands and eyes think in inches.  I've heard it referred to as metric schizophrenia, which is an unfortunate way of putting it, though not wholly inaccurate if you accept the omniprotean slang definitions of "schizophrenia".  Anyways, here are the plans in inches.  I've drawn up the garden as I would want it to look this time next year:

I'll grant you the handwriting ain't great.  The black square is a 4' greenhouse, the orange squares are 5' beds, the blue circles are 330L composters.  All to scale, of course. The East side (the top of the page is North, of course) is busy.  The West side is quiet.  Though I've only just committed it to paper, this is how I pictured it before I ever broke the ground.  

I've hit a number of objections from within the household, which are somewhat frustrating.  Time to vent!

That's so cluttered!

Not really, as beds take up little vertical space.  Besides, the lawn is clear and that's effing large.  

Why do we need beds to grow veg?

1) Species compete, and without a barrier in the soil the dominant veg will push out the other veg.  

2) Because if I had a cricket bat I could stand outside our front gate and drop a tennis ball right into the Thames!

I don't want it to look like an allotment.
You want to grow veg.  No, let's be clear, you want me to grow veg.  This would be significantly harder to accomplish whilst keeping the garden looking like Wimbledon on both halves.  

Do we need a greenhouse to grow tomatoes and herbs?
Do we need a kitchen to cook food?  No, but it improves our ability to cook food and broadens the range of food we can cook.  

Do we have to grow great frames of beans in rotation?  Can't we just grow leafy things that sit close to the ground?  Why the composter?
The Nitrogen Cycle is an interesting thing and I suggest everybody acquaint themselves with it's basics.  How it applies to the arable gardener is as follows: your tatties and carrots take nitrates out of the soil; beans put nitrates into the soil.  No beans = nowt else!  No - I tell a lie - nowt else unless you're prepared to save all your pee and extract the nitrogen from that.  

Okay, that's that done.  I'll have to argue this some more, methinks.  If I'm gonna get the first earlies in for the coming year then I shall have to resolve these issues and get the beds built by the end of January.  Wish me luck!

Well that's one way to rake the lawn...

Rather than get a stone in my back every time I lay down on the lawn, I decided it might be an idea to rake out the stones.  Now, picking out every stone is more trouble than I can honestly be bothered with, so I built a sieve from three pallets and a sheet of 6mm chickenwire.

What happened next was a beautiful thing.  Out the bottom of the sieve fell soft, dark, loamy, humus-rich, grade A topsoil!  I have a funny feeling that this lawn is going to be pretty sweet.

Finally, I realise that thus far this blog has had a dearth of two things: finished projects and cuteness.  With that in mind, here's George modelling a bench I built last week.

Goodnight :)

In Pictures: The Dig-Over

In Pictures is something I'll do now and then; often with few or no words.  Generally when either A) I'm knackered, or B) the pictures say more than words might.  Tonight it's chiefly A with a good dollop of B.  

On the left here, you can see George's social hole.  I haven't the heart to repair that bit of fence.  

New blog

So...

  We moved here some dozen years ago, and the garden was a heap.  An insurmountable jungle of weeds and trees.  The path had been rafted over by wind and humus.  There was a rotted old shed full of broken glass and rusted iron.  A shitehole, in short.  We never bothered with it.

More trees sprang up.  One of the two big trees - who knows what species - had two of it's four trunks killed by the ivy plant belonging to the Scumbags-Over-The-Back-Left, (so dubbed because of Mrs. Scumbag's habit of screaming "YOU FUCKING CUNT" whenever she sees me).

So a year ago I thought "sod it, I might as well do something with that garden".  I've since given over the ground on the left side of the path to a lawny-type space, and the ground to the right of the path to arable purposes.  So far I've:

• dug the lawn side, 
• taken out all the baby trees, 
• demolished the shed and thrown out the junk, 
• cut the ivy right back,
• dug out the stinging nettles,
• repaired the fence (except for the little hole where George, the dog, enjoys nasal meetings with next door's dogs),  
• stained the fence a browny-orangey-red (so that it reflects the corresponding wavelengths of light at my plants),
• built a Strawbrary,
• and chopped down the dead and diseased parts of the tree in the back left:

Today, and for the next fortnight, I'll be forking and weeding the lawn.  I'll have to replant the whole damn thing in September, but it'll be worth it next Summer.  This blog will be updated as and when I do stuff of note in the garden.